When you buy Intel, you get what you pay for

After all that drama with trying to get cheap laptops on specials, it's time to return them! At least most of the ones I'm returning are unopened, so they can resell them ‘as new’.

Okay, okay, the one I got from Noel Leeming (HP Pavilion dv6914tx), that was my bad, for not checking out on the Core 2 Duo specifications on the CPU first. That CPU (T5750) was listed in the table, as one that doesn't support hardware virtualisation.

But I also took advantage of a couple of other specials too (HP Pavilion “Influx” SE dv6819tx, and Sony VAIO VGN-NS15G), and their CPUs (T5850 and T5800 respectively) aren't even listed! How could I know whether a CPU supports hardware virtualisation if it isn't listed?!

Now, reading up on the web revealed that I could replace the CPU (the HP manuals go into great lengths to explain how to accomplish this, so it's obviously a supported procedure), but the only comparable CPU currently available, a T7500, will cost me $400 to get, which would completely negate the savings I made from the specials, and put me back to square one.

In comparison, my current laptop (which I got for even cheaper), a Compaq Presario F573AU (with an Athlon X2 TK-53 processor, i.e., not even a Turion), is the dinkiest laptop of all the ones we have at home; it also happens to be the only one that supports hardware virtualisation (being the only laptop here with AMD instead of Intel).

So, that's why AMD rocks, and Intel can eat a donkey or something. :-)